Japanese nuclear company submitted plans for new nuclear plants 11 days after disaster

The nuclear power company in charge of the earthquake-hit Fukushima Daiichi plant submitted plans for the construction of two new plants at the site 11 days after the disaster struck.

An official of TEPCO looks down as he attends to a daily news conference at the company headquarters in TokyoPhoto: EPA

By Julian Ryall in Tokyo

4:56PM BST 06 Apr 2011

The proposal to start work on the new reactors in the spring of 2012 was filed with the Fukushima Prefectural government the day after the death toll in the natural disasters surpassed the 10,000 figure and an advisory panel to the government first stated that the No. 3 reactor was leaking radiation into the atmosphere.

The plan was than incorporated in a report on future power consumption and generation capabilities submitted to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on March 31.

“Yes, this is correct, but we are required to submit a report on our annual electricity plan for the next fiscal year by law,” Hiro Hasegawa, a spokesman for Tepco, told The Daily Telegraph.

“We had prepared the report before March 11 and did not have time to change the information it contained,” he said. “People ask why we did not just drop the report, but it’s not as easy as that. we are required by law to produce it and we did not have time to reassess the plans.”

Senior Tepco officials have stated that it will not be possible to build the planned new plants at the facility, although that opinion has not been formalised at a board meeting, Hasegawa said.

Yoichi Nozaki, director general of Fukushima prefecture’s Planning and Co-ordination Department, said: “It was just unbelievable ... Tokyo Electric may want to ignore the feelings of Fukushima residents, but this is definitely not acceptle.”

Makoto Watanabe, a lecturer in politics and media at Hokkaido Bunkyo University, said: “From an emotional standpoint, this is simply not acceptable to the people of Fukushima Prefecture.

“I imagine there will be differences in the opinions of people in Tokyo - which will need power in the summer months - and those in northern Japan, but the timing of this proposal is just terrible.

“The people who lived by this plant have to be angry when they think about all that they have lost. And now they will never get anything in return for agreeing to host the plant.”

The good news for the company on Wednesday was that its engineers have apparently plugged a crack that was leaking radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. Engineers had so far been struggling to stop the leaks since the plant was damaged.

The experts pumped a mixture of liquid glass and a hardening agent into a maintenance pit close to the reactors. Previous efforts that had failed to stem the flow of water ranged from using concrete, sawdust and shredded newspapers.

High concentrations of radiation have already escaped into the sea, however, with Tepco confirming on Tuesday that levels of radioactive iodine-131 in seawater off the plant’s damaged No. 2 reactor were 7.5 million times higher than normal.

“Right now, just because the leak has stopped, we are not relieved yet,” he said. “We are checking whether the leak has completely stopped, or whether there may be other leaks.”

The company has been forced to pump water with lower radiation levels into the sea from the basements of the reactors to enable emergency crews to work on the damaged facilities. An estimated 60,000 tons of highly contaminated water – which accumulated after being sprayed on the reactors to keep them cool in the immediate aftermath of the disaster – are still awaiting disposal.